Twin Experiments In World War II

This week in class, we learned about unethical experiments that were performed in the past. Experiments that were don't on humans as well as animals. These unethical experiments are the reason for the standards we have now for the psychology tests that are done today. When each case was described in class, I was reminded of learning about World War II and the studies that were done by the Germans on twins. The man who was mostly responsible for conducting Hitlers twin experiments in World War II was a man named Josef Mengele, often referring to himself as 'Uncle Mengele'. He mainly worked in Auschwitz and ran horrible tests on the twins their. After the experiments were finished, he tended to murder the twins. If they weren't already dead.

Eva and Miriam

Some of the experiments he ran were: surgeries without anesthesia, blood transfusions between the twins, isolation endurance, reaction to  various stimuli, injections with lethal germs, sex change operations, removing organs and limbs, injecting chemicals into their eyes to try to chance their eye color, and even sewing them back to back to try to make Siamese twins. A pair of twins that were forced to be experimented on in Auschwitz actually survived. Their names were Eva and Miriam Mozes. Their time at Auschwitz was very painful. They were put through many brutal surgeries and experiments. For example, Eva was given five injections. She developed a high fever and swollen arms and legs. When Mengele saw her the next morning, he stated she only had two weeks to live. Miraculously, Eva and Miriam survived Auschwitz long enough to be liberated. By that time, only a few individual twins were still alive. Eva and Miriam lived long into their elderly years, however they could never had children and died from a rare cancer brought on because their organs never fully developed due to the experiments from when they were children.